https://www.scmp.com/rss/325926/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Surrounded by dense rainforest, as many as 50 protesters bore banners and placards reading “Damn the Dam!” and “Destroying the forest means destroying lives”. Several of them climbed into the forest canopy above and continued their protest from on high. They were demonstrating against the controversial Batang Toru dam project, a 510-megawatt hydroelectric project being developed by a Chinese-Indonesian consortium in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, and broadly considered to be part of the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3003172/green-activists-vow-fight-and-stop-china-backed-us15-billion-sumatra-dam?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3003172/green-activists-vow-fight-and-stop-china-backed-us15-billion-sumatra-dam?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 26 Mar 2019 22:00:09 +0000 West Java is the heartland of Indonesian manufacturing, and industrial zones on the outskirts of the provincial capital city, Bandung, are, according to the Ministry of Industry Indonesia, responsible for more than 14 per cent of the Southeast Asian nation’s gross domestic product. Most factories here produce textiles, with some operations being essential links in the supply chains of global fashion brands such as Zara, Gap, Adidas and H&M. Access to cheap and plentiful water has been key to the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2180655/indonesia-cleaning-citarum-worlds-dirtiest-river?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2180655/indonesia-cleaning-citarum-worlds-dirtiest-river?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Jan 2019 08:30:15 +0000 Ahmed Arifin makes his way slowly up the rocky path in the darkness, breathing heavily with 80kg of sulphite rock pressing down on his shoulders. One of his hands balances the load while the other carries a torch. He carefully pushes his way through a stream of tourists who are on their way down to the volcanic crater lake where Arifin harvests the sulphite. Somehow he finds the strength to pose for a photo. Media-savvy Arifin, 47, has been a sulphur miner for 28 years and has had his picture... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2141202/how-indonesias-media-savvy-miners-became-tourist?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2141202/how-indonesias-media-savvy-miners-became-tourist?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Apr 2018 11:15:15 +0000 It takes weeks of messaging and meetings before someone agrees to take us to a dugong pit. Short for adu bagong – or wild boar fighting – dugong is popular in rural parts of Indonesia’s West Java province, where dog owners pay for the chance to let their animals attack a wild boar inside an arena. For some, the sport is training for their hunting dogs. Others take part purely for entertainment. Animal rights activists launched a campaign to stop the practice last year, persuading provincial... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2134962/dogs-fighting-wild-boars-illegal-pits-indonesia-and-activist-trying-put?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2134962/dogs-fighting-wild-boars-illegal-pits-indonesia-and-activist-trying-put?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Feb 2018 00:45:15 +0000 Frantic shop owners in Bali have been trying to persuade tourists that they are still open for business, but volcano Mount Agung’s eruption tells another story. “We are still open, we’re 18 kilometres away from the volcano. Another mountain protects us. The wind is not coming to Amed, and even if it did, the ash would not reach us,” says Nyoman Miskin Aryana. Almost 19,000 mainland Chinese and Hong Kong visitors stranded in Bali as ash from Mount Agung keeps flights grounded The Balinese man... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2122144/fear-volcanic-eruption-hits-businesses-north-bali-hardest?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2122144/fear-volcanic-eruption-hits-businesses-north-bali-hardest?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:45:45 +0000